


Role Reversal

by Heliocat



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hugs, M/M, Men Crying, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Okumura Eiji Needs a Hug, Protective Ash Lynx, Regret, Tears, everyone probably needs therapy, fear of failure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27197854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliocat/pseuds/Heliocat
Summary: Ash wakes up in the night to find Eiji having a nightmare. Roles are reversed, and it is up to him to provide the comfort and reassurance rather than the other way around.EDIT 4/12/2020 - Now with a rubbish illustration! Ooooh!
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 10
Kudos: 193





	Role Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> Ash tries his best! 
> 
> I'm English, so British English has been used for spelling and grammar. Stuff written <"like this"> is Eiji speaking Japanese.
> 
> Many thanks to Akimi Yoshida for creating Banana Fish - this is a work of fanfiction, so I own none of the intellectual property.

It was the dead of night, and something had roused Ash from his slumber. For once, he had been sleeping relatively peacefully. No night terrors had disturbed him, so why he had woken up was currently a mystery. He could sense it was still dark, even without opening his eyes. Reluctant to move, he kept them closed in the hopes he’d just drift off back to sleep, his brief moment of wakefulness forgotten come morning. He was just starting to descend back into unconsciousness when he heard it.

The quietest of whimpers, and skin moving softly against bedding sheets as someone nearby moved around slightly in bed.

Ash forced himself awake, using all his willpower to crack his eyes open. A digital clock on the bedside table read 02:27 in bright red numbers. _Oh joy…_ He heard more low moans, almost sobs, coming from behind him; more rustling of fabric; a gentle creak of bedsprings. He rolled over to face the culprit sleeping in the room’s second bed.

A beam of moonlight shone through a crack in the curtains, illuminating the occupant of the other bed. Their black hair was mussed and matted, sticking to their damp forehead in sweaty clumps. Their face was screwed up slightly in discomfort, frown lines creasing the spot between their neatly manicured dark eyebrows. They had managed to kick half the duvet off, their chest and arms exposed to the outside world clothed in a creased pyjama shirt, a lone bare and muscular leg braving the cold as it poked out from under the covers, pyjama bottoms pushed up from the ankle to the thigh from moving around, toes curling slightly with tension. They moaned, mumbled something in garbled and fearfully-toned Japanese, and shifted in their sleep again, clearly in the grip of an unpleasant dream.

_‘Well… this makes a change…’_

Ash had never seen Eiji have a nightmare before. Usually it was him thrashing about at night in the throes of terror, reliving events in his past he’d rather forget. Countless times he dreamt of fat, rich men violating him – most frequently he remembered his old Little League coach who had started it all. He would recall over and over in his dreams the moment he shot him in the head with his Old Man’s pistol. If it wasn’t the Cape on his mind, then it was Dino’s restaurant; he’d been forced to do some truly horrifying things in his youth, and the memories chased through his visions in a nocturnal slideshow of horror. He’d endured beatings and ridicule, every inch of him had been explored and fondled as he squirmed and cried, perverted nonces on top of him, smothering him, _inside_ him… he shuddered at those memories, sweeping them into the darkest corners of his mind. More recently he had dreamt of the deaths of people he knew, both ones that had happened and ones that potentially might, all of them his fault. Skipper dying had been a kick in the teeth, and losing his brother had been bitter but expected. Shorter dying, however, had hit him hard like a freight train. His best friend was gone, and he’d been the one to fire the gun. Now, he would dream of his final moments, and worse, he would imagine others he cared for included in the mix. Max and Ibe… Alex, Bones and Kong… Eiji… and the blood would always stain his hands and he would scream silently into the night.

He’d killed many people before. He hated it - hated himself most of all - but he couldn’t stop. He lived each day on edge and fully prepared to kill again. He feared more than anything that one day he was going to get someone innocent caught in the crossfire.

But what exactly would make _Eiji_ of all people squirm in his sleep? As far as Ash was aware, he had no past traumas, or at least nothing of the same scale his own were. He’d been a professional athlete, but had been forced to quit following injury which made it near impossible to keep jumping at a competitive level. That was disheartening, depressing even, but not particularly anxiety inducing. He had mentioned once that his father was in ill health and his mother had had an affair, but at least he still had both parents and they cared for him and he for them, unlike Ash and his deadbeat father (who did care for each other deep down, but had a very weird way of showing it). Besides, your mother playing the field wasn’t cause for fear; anger maybe, and disappointment, but certainly not nightmare fuel. Maybe he was reliving the events of the last few weeks? He’d been kidnapped numerous times, almost killed on more than one occasion, and had seen a lot of death and taken a lot of abuse. Ash was almost used to those sorts of things, but for Eiji it would have been pretty terrifying.

Ash didn’t think that was the root cause of the nightmare though.

He didn’t know too much about his Japanese friend, but one big factor that stuck out vividly were his feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness. He had a deeply rooted fear of failing and of disappointing people, which he certainly wasn’t doing, yet he appeared to perceive himself as worthless. While he would always smile and act happy, Ash could see plain as day that half the time that smile wouldn’t reach his eyes. It was the same smile he had seen so often on the kids in the Club before they broke entirely; that brave little quirk of the lip that shouted ‘I’m trying so hard to be strong!’ Frankly, it was concerning.

He convulsed in bed with a strangled gasp, twitching so hard he woke himself up. Ash watched as he lay very still and stiff in the bed for a few seconds, breathing hard and shallow, staring up at the ceiling as he re-oriented himself in that brief moment of confusion between sleep and wakefulness with where he was and what had happened. Eventually, he rolled onto his side, grasping at the bedcover and pulling it back over his upper body, curling in on himself, trying to be quiet.

“You okay?” Ash asked him, making him physically flinch in shock.

“Ash!” he squeaked, alarmed. “I did not realise you awake!”

“Hard to sleep when you’re mumbling to yourself over there.”

<“… I’m sorry.”>

“I’m going to guess that’s a Japanese apology,” Ash sighed, sitting up in bed and turning on the bedside lamp. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone gets bad dreams sometimes.”

“Hmm.” Eiji pulled the bedcover further over his face, so only his large eyes were visible, wide and peering at him in the gloom.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“It is hardly worth talking about…” Eiji mumbled. “Compared to you… It is nothing.”

“Eiji, it clearly isn’t nothing if you’re waking up in the middle of the night over it,” Ash told him.

“No… It nothing. Like you say, everyone have bad dream sometime. I am fine.”

“Eiji…”

He had a habit of doing this, clamming up when it came to his own issues. Some of it was cultural, the general Japanese response to mental health being ‘suck it up’, ‘don’t bother others with your personal issues’, and ‘work through the pain’, which may explain the country’s alarmingly high suicide rate. The rest was Eiji’s inferiority complex telling him that, because his life hadn’t been even half as bleak as most of the street kids he now spent time with, he had no right to feel upset or depressed about it. Ash’s life especially was a hot mess of trauma and bad luck, so Eiji felt Ash having anxiety and disillusionment with life was justified, and would do everything in his power to make him feel better about himself, telling him things weren’t his fault, that he had never asked for any of those things to happen, and that every ‘bad’ thing he had done was to protect himself and others. He was always ready with a comforting hand on the shoulder, a warm hug or a reassuring smile, maybe a joke or two to cheer him up. Meanwhile, he had been getting upset over inconsequential things like no longer being able to partake in a niche sport, and felt guilty that he was feeling bad when his issues paled in comparison. That in turn made him feel worse, then add to that his personal view that he was worthless and getting in the way, or that things were somehow his fault when they weren’t… he was probably feeling like the worst excuse for a human on the planet. In his mind, he didn’t deserve pity or reassurance, especially not from someone like Ash. It would be like a wealthy businessman with all the money in the world asking for charity from a homeless person.

“You can talk to me, y’know,” Ash told him quietly. “I’m not going to judge you. I just want to help.”

“You sound like therapist,” Eiji muttered.

“Well, I think you’re probably going to need therapy after all this is over,” Ash quipped, “But, if there is anything I can do in the meantime… After everything you’ve done for me, I want to help.”

“I not done anything.”

“You’ve done plenty, Eiji,” Ash assured him. “You may not feel like you have sometimes, but you have done far more for me than anyone else has.”

“I wash underpants, keep apartment clean, cook sometimes… you may as well get maid.”

“Oh please – a maid wouldn’t do any of those things half as well as you can,” Ash smirked. “That fabric softener you brought? My undercarriage has never been so comfortable! You can wash my briefs for the rest of time!” He managed to coax a small ‘heh’ of amusement out of his friend, before adding, “In all seriousness, Eiji, you just being you is enough.”

Eiji made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a sob, vanishing entirely under the bedding as he mumbled, “It never enough… I just cause problem.”

“Eiji… c’mon, talk to me,” Ash pleaded. He flung the covers off himself and spun his legs out to sit on the edge of his bed. “When have you ever caused a problem?”

“All the time. I cause problem moment I arrive!” came the muffled reply. “And when I cause problem… people die, Ash.”

Ash couldn’t really think of an immediate reply to that. Comforting words were not really his forte, and this was clearly more than just an inferiority complex at work.

“Let us just go back to sleep,” Eiji pleaded. “Please?”

“Eiji… what did you dream of tonight?” he asked sincerely.

Eiji didn’t answer, but instead curled into a smaller ball under the duvet. Ash stood up, crossed the gap between the two beds, perched himself on the edge of Eiji’s, and pulled the cover down off him. As he suspected, Eiji was crying silently and had been trying to hide it.

“You not going to let this go, are you?” Eiji murmured.

“Is it wrong of me to want to cheer my friend up?”

“No…” Eiji sat up, positioning himself next to Ash on the bed. He sniffed and scrubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms.

“You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to - I ain’t gonna force you. But I’m here,” Ash encouraged him, bumping him gently with his shoulder. “I’m listening.”

“I dream of Shorter,” he said quietly, his voice cracking, trying to keep his foreign accent controlled. It tended to get stronger when he was upset or angry. “I dream of day he died. He is chasing me with knife. I keep reliving event in mind, but… this time, you are not there. Nobody is there to save me, and Shorter… he blame me! He blame me for many thing. For Skipper, because if I not there, Skipper would not have been caught. He blame me for your brother, because I messed up. You gave me simple job to do, and I failed! Should have been more careful! I was stupid, just walk into Chinatown, advertise self as knowing you! My carelessness got your older brother killed! Nearly got Dr. Meredith and his assistant killed too. In Cape Cod, he tell me if I no call out to you, then Dino’s men may not have known you were there. They might not have shot your father and that nice lady. And then finally, he blame me for himself. If I not there, if I had gone home, like you all told me to, then he never have to protect me! I am weak – I am no use to anyone! If I had gone home, he would never have got caught up in mess! He still be alive. My actions and mistakes mess everything up! And in dream, because you not there to… to shoot… he raise knife and he… he…”

Eiji couldn’t continue, but Ash got the idea. He’d had similar dreams himself. You always jerk awake just before you die. He could see Eiji shaking violently at the memory, and fresh tears wended tracks down his cheeks. He’d wrapped his arms around himself, grasping his elbows tight in clawed hands, like he was trying to hold himself for comfort, or prevent himself falling apart. It hurt Ash to see him this way; he was usually so calm and steadfast, so watching him break down over his own insecurities was heart-rending. He’d been through a lot these past few months, and usually forged on without complaint. Ash raised his arm, feeding it behind Eiji to rest at the side of his head. He pulled him gently down, so his head rested on his shoulder, then moved his hand down onto Eiji’s shoulder in a comforting side-hug. Eiji sobbed a few times, hiding his face behind one of his hands and leaning into the hug, accepting the affection greedily. Ash gently stroked his shoulder with his thumb, silently letting him weep out his fears.

“I blame self too,” he admitted. “Every day, regret so many thing.”

“None of what happened was your fault,” Ash told him. “I don’t blame you for any of it, and I know Shorter definitely didn’t.”

“If only I stronger,” he growled, frustrated at himself. “Maybe then I no need protecting all the time! Can look after self! Maybe then, people not die just because I get in way! I should just go home, but… I do not want to leave either! I am selfish for staying but, if I go, I would just be running away again! That seem to be all I am good at doing!”

“Eiji, you’re good at many things – stop putting yourself down!” Ash said firmly, squeezing him lightly.

“I have no right to be upset about this,” he said miserably. “I should not even be here!”

“And yet here you are,” Ash said quietly.

“I am just burden. I get in the way and never do anything right.”

“No, you’re not.”

“That not what you told me before…”

Trust Eiji to remember that. In Los Angeles, he had told him to go home, insinuating he was a liability. At the time, Ash had been keen to get him to return to Japan using any method possible, even if that meant upsetting him, but it wasn’t because he was a burden; it was for his own protection. He and Ibe didn’t belong in his world. It was an unhealthy, unhappy, dangerous hell that he wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially not someone he was sort-of starting to care about. Unfortunately, by that point of time it was already too late, and Eiji was now thoroughly entangled in the spider’s web with him.

“Ignore what I said before,” Ash said dismissively. “That was just me being an asshole.”

Eiji’s worth had never been in his fighting ability or street smarts anyway. If he wanted use of those abilities, he’d ask Alex or Kong and Bones. Eiji was foreign, didn't know New York or even America all that well, and was a pacifist. The one time he'd sent him out alone he'd had no other options and it had been to find Shorter to follow up on the request. He'd expected Eiji to give up if he couldn't find him, had half expected him not to help him at all, but he'd still gone and had tried his best to complete the task without Shorter when he couldn't be found. Ash did not blame him whatsoever for the events that followed; he laid the blame squarely on himself for sending an amateur, and was thankful that Shorter did come through, or things could have gone so much worse.

Eiji's worth instead lay in his emotional support, his unconditional compassion, and his gentle, empathetic nature. He was that Mom-friend who provided moral support, patched up wounds, and kept people smiling. Ash had never met anyone quite like him before, someone who made him feel appreciated and would do things for him without expecting anything sordid or traumatic in return. As much as Eiji would argue that he was weak and useless, Ash knew he was strong in different ways. He was brave, for one. You had to be if you did pole vault as a sport, but that bravery extended far beyond the athletics track. He had shown no obvious fear towards him when they first met, leading to a most unusual first impression, and several times his lack of fear, or more precisely him choosing to ignore that fear, led him to be impulsive and reckless in ways Ash would never dream of being, and in ways that surprised everyone and caught them off-guard. You’d think he was this meek, shy little tourist, but underneath that harmless looking shell was a crazy person who stole cars from cops, who would risk their neck pole vaulting with a rusty drainpipe over a wall onto God-only-knows-what on the other side, and who would follow him into a firefight without flinching. It was almost exciting, wondering about what other spontaneous and unplanned things Eiji might do in the future would be, but at the same time terrifying because it was a facet he couldn’t factor into any of his carefully laid out plans! He was a valuable addition to a team for his loyalty and his valour, but there was always that risk that he’d do something so insane, would run head-long into a danger he didn’t understand, and he wouldn’t survive.

“Still fact that I no good for anything,” Eiji said miserably. “I stay here all day, cannot help you, cannot even go out alone! Have to be with Kong and Bones because too weak and stupid to look after self.”

“Who said you were stupid?” Ash said, genuinely confused. “Was it one of my guys? I’ll kick their ass if it was! Because you’re not stupid, Eiji!”

“It not…” Eiji could see Yut Lung’s smarmy face scorning him in his memories. It had been him who had called him dumb and a disaster waiting to happen, just a weak link in an otherwise strong chain.

“That’s good then.”

“Still useless…”

“No… Eiji, you’re not useless. Inexperienced, maybe. That’s why I assigned Kong and Bones to keep an eye on you. I wouldn’t do that if you weren’t important! But you take those photos for me, don’t you?"

“Any monkey can take photo, Ash…”

“And you keep the place habitable…”

“Like maid…”

“And you lift everyone’s spirits. With everything that’s been going on, someone who can boost morale just by being themselves… that’s incredibly useful!”

“A dog can do that.”

“Oh God, this is like pulling teeth…” Ash muttered to himself. He wasn’t very good at this. The role reversal had thrown him well out of his comfort zone. He wished he knew how Eiji managed it so effortlessly – just a few kind words and his soothing presence and Ash would feel like he was worth something. Then again, the root of Ash’s issues was loneliness and the feeling he was being used by the universe, so knowing there was just one person there for him who didn’t expect anything from him was enough. Eiji’s was a fear of failure, and its roots ran deep; this is a far trickier beast to slay, a complicated network of dark twists and turns that digs itself into every little thing you do, poisoning your mindset. It was complicated further by the fact he thought Ash was fantastic, so anything Ash said seemed to come out as condescending or was brushed off as being lip service. How do you convince someone who can’t see their own worth for themselves that they are amazing? Maybe you can’t. But you can at least make them feel wanted.

“You might think you’re useless,” he told him, “But to me, you are a valuable asset… no, wait, that came out sounding wrong. You’re not a thing. You are a person, and you are worthy of my protection and time. You don’t need to do anything special to be amazing to me – you just have to keep being you, and that helps me every single day in more ways than you’ll ever know. I don’t need you to be a hard-ass brawler, or a sharpshooter, or a hired goon. Those people are two a penny. I need you to be Eiji Okumura. I hope you can at least understand that.”

Eiji whined quietly, burying his face in his shoulder, fingers threading into Ash’s shirt and clinging on. He was still shaking as quiet sobs wracked his body, but at least he had stopped calling himself useless. Ash held him as he let emotions kept bottled up for weeks out, wrapping his other arm around him. Seems like he just needed a good cry and a hug, and a little bit of reassurance that he wasn’t a complete waste of space and air. It wasn’t a complete solution; Eiji’s issues could not be repaired in a single night, but it was a start at least. He soon relaxed, leaning into him heavily as the tears finally stopped and he got his emotions back under control.

<”Thank you,”> he murmured in Japanese.

“That better not be another apology,” Ash told him.

“No,” Eiji replied, smiling. “It gratitude. I say ‘thank you’.”

“No problem.”

The clock on the table now read just shy of 3.30am.

“We should probably try and get back to sleep,” Ash told him, breaking off the hug. “Busy day ahead.”

“Mmh.”

Ash stood and went to return to his own bed, but felt Eiji’s fingers reach up and curl into the back of his shirt.

“C…can you… maybe?”

“You want me to stay?”

“Just one night?” Eiji asked. “Please?”

Ash hesitated. There was a bit of a difference between holding someone who is upset, and sleeping in the same bed with them. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time they had shared bed space, although every other time it had been either a necessity, or else an accident, the two of them falling asleep together without even realising and waking up in a tangle the following day. This often happened when Eiji comforted him after he had a nightmare. He figured on most of those occasions it had been him falling asleep on Eiji because he felt safe and warm, and Eiji was too nice to wake him to move, so they just stayed like that for the rest of the night. Eiji was currently giving him this really lost expression, like he’d drift away into nothingness without someone there with him. And it would be purely innocent – he wasn’t asking for sex or anything bad, he just needed someone there for him.

Such a small thing to ask for compared to all the things he had done in return.

Eiji released his clothing when Ash waited too long before replying. “Never mind,” he said quietly, moving away from him. He swung himself back round under the covers, settling down with his back to him. “I understand it weird. Forget I ask.”

“Move over,” Ash said. “I’m gonna need more space than that if you want me to fit!”

Eiji made a happy-sounding little noise as he shuffled over to make room, Ash climbing in behind him. He switched off the light before settling down. Eiji was warm, and he naturally found himself gravitating towards that heat, snuggling up as close as he dared. The proximity to each other seemed to work wonders towards relaxing both of them, and both were asleep within a matter of minutes.

***

Ash woke up at dawn, on his back, feeling pleasantly warm with something heavy on top of him. Pinned in place, normally he would panic, and initially he felt his heartbeat rise as he crashed suddenly back into the world of the living, but then he remembered the events of the night before. He squinted with one eye, risking a peek in the pale morning light.

Eiji had rolled over at some point, one of his arms thrown over his chest. That was the weight he felt. The rest of him was nestled up tight against his side, his breathing deep and regular. He looked young for his age anyway, but he always seemed to look even more youthful and innocent as he slept, long eyelashes shuttered onto smooth cheeks and hair fluffy and messed up from sleep. Ash shifted slightly into a more comfortable position, and Eiji murmured quietly with the jostling movement, frowning slightly in disapproval and curling even tighter against him in response.

 _‘Guess it can’t hurt to stay like this a while longer,’_ Ash thought, settling back on the pillow with a sigh. ‘ _Not forever. Just for now.’_


End file.
